Keith Douglas 1920-1944. Background Keith was a tanker.He fought in North Africa and at the D-Day Invasion at Normandy, where he was killed on June 9.

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Presentation on theme: "Keith Douglas 1920-1944. Background Keith was a tanker.He fought in North Africa and at the D-Day Invasion at Normandy, where he was killed on June 9."— Presentation transcript:

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Keith Douglas

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Background Keith was a tanker.He fought in North Africa and at the D-Day Invasion at Normandy, where he was killed on June 9. Douglas was also a student of Edmund Blunden at Merton College before he became a soldier, and arguably the greatest poet, in the Second World War.

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Douglas wrote that "the behaviour of the living and the appearance of the dead were so accurately described by the poets of the Great War that every day on the battlefields of the western desert... their poems are illustrated". In his poem "Desert Flowers" Douglas remarks that he is only repeating what Isaac Rosenberg has already said. Douglas wrote that "the behaviour of the living and the appearance of the dead were so accurately described by the poets of the Great War that every day on the battlefields of the western desert... their poems are illustrated". In his poem "Desert Flowers" Douglas remarks that he is only repeating what Isaac Rosenberg has already said.

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Desert FlowersLiving in a wide landscape are the flowers - The obvious meaning could be ordinary desert flowers or people, the idea of men or young men as they bloom they die. Rosenberg I only repeat what you were saying - This means that death is always present The shell and the hawk every hour - The shell could be a cannon shell used in the war and the hawk could be a raptor who is out kill or even a war time plane The mind: but the body can fill - This could mean that he is not thinking just reacting

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the hungry flowers and the dogs who cry words This could be the hungry men who have been fighting for days without eating. This could also mean that the men have been trained to act like dogs, ferocious, violent and only car about themselves and surviving, at nights, the most hostile things of all. This suggests that at night the most of the fighting takes place then. The war is fought at night. But that is not new. Each time the night discards This means it happens a lot and the night just rejects it. Draperies on the eyes and leaves the mind awake While the body tries to sleep the mind stays awake

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I look each side of the door of sleep They can not decide whether they are asleep or awake for the little coin it will take A reference to Roman times to buy the secret I shall not keep. The idea of death I see men as trees suffering To see men acting like trees, Big and strong,but all trees were blowen to bits in the war

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Lay the coin on my tongue and I will sing In Roman times when people died they would lay a coin on the persons tongue. El Ballah, General Hospital, 1943